Thinking better about rural wealth creation and retention

Abstract

For some decades now, the practices of eco­nomic and community development have increasingly intertwined. This has largely involved a rebalancing of the economic and community por­tions of the mix to give increasing prominence to the community side of the ledger. In their decade-and-a-half-old article, Rethinking Community Economic Development, Shaffer, Deller, and Marcouiller (2006) illustrated this in their classification of successive waves of dominant community economic develop­ment (CED) theory and practice: export base, business retention and expansion, collaboration and partnership driven, and cluster development. Shanna Ratner’s 2020 book Wealth Creation: A New Framework for Rural Economic and Community Development comes from one of the leading devel­opers and practitioners of a fifth-wave approach that is beginning to lay a legitimate claim to the respect of academics, professionals, and commu­nity members alike. In 158 pages, Ratner’s slim and accessible volume does an admirable job of summarizing a synthetic approach that is both informed by theory and steeped in decades of participant-observation and learning-by-doing. The author, often addressing the reader as “you,” as if in the training workshops she has frequently pro­vided, explicitly aims at writing for those with few degrees of separation from CED practice: “policy makers, practitioners in economic and community development, teachers, students [including under­graduates, I would specify], financers and funders…” (p. viii). . . .